Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Whatever it is that is sinful, whatever it is that is less than holy, our obligation is to kill that stuff. There are parts of our lives that need to die, right? This is where God really indwells your life and is working through you.

And if you're led by the Spirit of God, you're sons of God, and people that are led by the Spirit of God are putting to death the misdeeds of the body because they're obligated to do so.

Dave Drury: Whenever I'm preparing for a trip, I try to pack as little as possible so I can avoid any delays along the way. Our journey with Christ isn't much different. Every day, it's a struggle to remove temptation, to drop the baggage that's holding us back.

I'm Dave Drury, and today on Focal Point, we're continuing our study called "Our Fight with Sin." To complement this series, we're offering any first-time listener a free copy of Pastor Mike's newest booklet, *Storing Up Treasures*. Just reach out online at focalpointradio.org. Well, now here's Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: For those that think coming to Christ is the end of the battle, you need to recognize it's the beginning of the battle. The day you stand up and say, "I want to follow Jesus Christ," not only does the satanic world system and the demonic spiritual forces of this world, but your flesh itself rebels against that resolve.

Even though God recreates our heart and makes us new, we are now, according to Galatians 5:16, at war in our hearts. As Peter put it, he says they are desires that wage war against our soul. If you want to be passive and kick your feet up on the desk and say, "Well, I'm loved by God and the grace of God. I'm into all that. I don't really need to fight this stuff," you are a disaster waiting to happen. You've got to recognize it requires a fight, and you and I need to be ruthless about it.

Can we just have a little time of contemplation right now and say to God, "We are going to declare war on sin. Whatever hinders and whatever sin entangles me, I'm ready to say I'm done with it"? Which means that the practical implications of this series—if you give God the blank check and say, "God, whatever you decide in my life is not pleasing to you, I'm going to cast it off"—I'm willing to adopt God's attitude about my form of recreation if I determine by Your spirit and God's word that that is an avenue through which sin comes.

I'm ready to stop the subscription to that magazine, as benign as my friends may think it is, if it's leading me to covet other people's stuff. I'm ready to say no to that television program. I'm willing to say no to the internet. I'm willing to say no to that job. I'm willing to move. I'm willing to stop that relationship with that person. I'm willing to change states because whatever it might be for you, God's going to say, "Hey, here's the problem for you."

It's not just the sin; it's the avenue through which sin comes. The lure is temptation; the entanglement is sin. We need to deal with both. It's the hindrance and the sin that so easily entangles. The command for us is to fight. If you are willing to do that and I'm willing to do that, here's the thing: this series can change your life, radically transform it.

It could be one of those series you look back on five years from now and say, "That's where I got really serious about my sanctification. That turned my life around in terms of that habit and that sin that used to entangle me. God changed my life there." You're saying to God, "Okay, God, you got it. You're the king. You see something in my life you don't like? I'm ditching it." That's the bottom line. We're going to fight it.

Now, if you're going to really declare war on something, there ought to be some good reasons for it. As a matter of fact, it sounds like a real hassle to fight something. Well, it is. So, we need to remember why it's worth it. The verse starts in verse number one of Hebrews 12 with a reason. The reason is really a window into the whole 11th chapter. Look at it again, verse number one, the first line: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses," then he says here, "let us throw off everything that hinders."

It starts with a therefore, so we're not talking about you've got a great church and people around you. We're talking about the Hebrews 11 roll call of people that have ambitious faith. That's the backdrop to this chapter. As a matter of fact, those of you with your Greek New Testaments here, you can look at that Greek word right there that translates witnesses, and it's the word that we use and transliterate into English "martyrs." We have such a great cloud of martyrs.

Martyrs, just like the English word witness, can be used in one of two ways. We can say someone is witnessing me; they're witnessing what I am doing. Or we can say someone is witnessing to me; they're testifying to me of something else. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Look at chapter 11. All these people are testifying to something.

What have we been looking at in Hebrews 11? People that say, "I don't care what the world says, I don't care what people think, I'm going to do the right thing, I'm going to follow God." I'm going to have the faith to move on to the next. I'm not going to be lukewarm; I'm going to be hot for God. That's what we've been learning about in Hebrews chapter 11. Since we now are surrounded by people that testify to the appropriateness of it, to the value of it, he says, "Now you do it."

Chapter 11 is the reason for chapter 12. What other reason for me to be like those people in chapter 11? Why should I tear off the encumbrances and the sin that entangles me? We learned some things about the guys in chapter 11. Let's go back to Hebrews chapter 11, verse number six. When we define faith, this was the very first week we looked at verse one and verse six.

Look at the last phrase: "He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." That was one of the themes throughout chapter 11, that when people in Old Testament examples earnestly sought God, God made it worth their while. He promised good things for them. He rewarded them.

Just to talk about our fight with sin, drop down to verse 24. Moses was a good example of this. By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He grew up in the palace and had everything there available to him; he could have had whatever kind of earthly indulgence he wanted.

But he chose rather, verse 25, to be mistreated along with the people of God that they despised, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He said no to temptation. He could have indulged, but he didn't. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ, the coming Messiah, and righteousness and the embodiment of God, as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt. Why? Because, as Hebrews chapter 11, verse six said, he was looking ahead to his reward.

We need to rethink the reasons for this. The great cloud of testifiers testify to this one thing: when we do the right thing, it's rewarding. Why should I fight sin? Why should I work so hard to follow the Master? Why should I say no to temptation? Because God will reward you. There is a promise of reward for doing what is right.

We started our sermon there in John chapter 10. He's a good shepherd with good intentions for us. As sheep, I have to follow the shepherd. I know that it is requisite upon me to follow the shepherd because if I do, it will go well with me. He wants to give me life and that to the full.

Now, this is not the prosperity gospel. But what I'm saying to you is this: it will go well for us. As Moses said in Deuteronomy, "Choose life." This would be better for you to do the right thing as opposed to the wrong thing. It is rewarding. I know when we read this passage in Hebrews chapter 11, verse number 26, we looked to the ultimate reward. I know we quoted in that particular sermon the ultimate laying up of treasures in heaven.

There is an eschatological ultimate reality to God saying to us, "Well done, now here's your reward for doing the right thing." But you need to know that when we think about denying ourselves, saying no to sin, putting to death the sin in our lives, there's benefit here and now. That doesn't take a lot of imagination because a lot of us have experienced this. We can testify to that.

There's reward here and now. Turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter four. I just want you to underline it and highlight this verse because it's very helpful as we think about why should I go to the hassle of denying myself the pleasures of doing what I want to do? Why work so hard at this? Why fight it? Winning any skirmish against temptation is going to be rewarding, but it's not just by and by. Don't fall asleep in your bed and go, "One day God will reward me for this in heaven." When you deny yourself, you need to recognize there's reward here and now.

1 Timothy chapter four, verse number eight. "But godliness"—you want to talk about working to do something that's hard? I mean, you see those guys at the gym sweating it out. They're working hard, and yeah, there's some benefit for that, Paul says. But here's the deal: you work hard at this next word, godliness. That has value for all things.

This is great. "It holds out promise for both"—circle that word "both"—"for both the present life and the life to come." I want you to ponder that for a second. Let that percolate for a minute. When you and I say no to sin—the sins that we're getting entangled in right now—if eight weeks from now, we're really winning battles against those temptations in our minds and our thoughts and our words and our attitudes and our actions, it will be rewarded not only in the by and by treasures in heaven, it will be rewarded here and now.

You could probably say, "I have fought temptation in one of a few battles in my life and you're right, it was worth it." Can you not say that? Couldn't we open up the mic and have you come up here and go, "Yeah, that's true, it was rewarding to say no to sin"? Though it was hard and I got the ridicule of the world, and maybe I denied myself and had an unmet appetite or desire, when I said no, it was worth it.

If that doesn't prove it, let's invert that principle. Weren't there times when you gave into sin that you look back on and say, "Wow, it would have been rewarding not to fall into that sin," right? I mean, isn't that right?

I don't understand the hubris of our culture where you get these people on the TV all the time going, "Well, I have no regrets about my life." I don't understand that. Did you live a perfect life? "Oh no, but I'm just—I see it all worth it." Isn't there some things you regret about your life? I do. I'd like to go back and change a million things.

I would like every time I've given into temptation to go back and do it right. Why? Because you reap what you sow. I'd like to take all the scars of every failure and I would like to have not experienced that. There would have been a reward in the passivity of not having the damage caused by sin. Let's start with that.

So, I'm saying there will be reward. If you could run the tape forward in your life and you could see your life working out on two different planes—one where you fight the battle severely, you mortify the flesh, if you say I'm going to fight it hard, and you see the reward that comes to your life, and then if you say, "Nah, whatever, I'm going to cruise and just read me another verse about how much God loves me."

If you go that path and you don't worry about this stuff, can't you compare those two lives in the imagination right now of your mind and say, "Wow, that's a better life than that one"? I don't want the scars of any more sin in my life, do you? Do you want to carry that stuff around? Do you want to look back and say, "Oh, I should have, would have, could have"?

I don't want to do that. I want to shore up as much of this as I can. And I hope that you do too. The bottom line is, let's put it in a word: it's rewarding. Fight the battle; it's worth it. Every ounce of energy that is expended on fighting sin, you're going to go, "Wow, that's worth it." I know it doesn't feel like it in the middle of temptation, but it's worth the fight.

Rethink the reasons. Reason number one, and certainly Hebrews 11 proved this to us, it's rewarding. It holds out promise and we saw these people testifying to the way that God rewarded them for doing the right thing.

Secondly, fight sin because it's rewarding. How about this one? Fight sin because it's required. It's not only rewarding; it's required. It is not only something that you should do because it's worth it, it's something you should do because you should do it. God's telling you to do it.

You must do it. You have an obligation to do it. You're clinging to a cross where God's anger was spent and Christ Himself took the penalty of that sin. It's only something that is right to do because you have a debt. Just being forgiven indebts you to fighting sin in your life.

Let me give you one example. Go to Romans chapter eight. In Romans chapter eight, I hope that we'll see with the clear and explicit language of this text that you and I have no option. Being engaged in a fight with temptation and sin is your birthright as a Christian. It starts at conversion and you're not let off the hook until you die.

The battle does not stop in this life. You are going to fight it when you're 90 years old. There's going to be some area where you're going to see that you've got to declare war on sin. There's no perfectionism here. You and I are in this fight all the way to the end. That's every example in the scripture; that's the case. And it is an obligation that we have.

Look at the word in verse 12. Romans chapter eight, verse number 12. "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation." That's a big legal word, a forensic word. It is a debt that we owe. You're in contract for this. You are a debtor to some obligation.

He says, first of all, it's not to the sinful nature. You're not enslaved to your body's impulses. You're not obligated to carry out the desires and satisfy the appetites that you have innately in your fallen flesh. No, you're not on an obligation to that. To live according to the sinful nature. If you do, verse number 13, here's the deal: you're going to die. People that do that aren't even saved.

But if you live by the Spirit, here's the obligation. The obligation is to put to death the misdeeds of the body. And again, that's the mortification. That's even a stronger word than fight. Whatever it is that is sinful, whatever it is that is less than holy, our obligation is to kill that stuff.

There's a part of our lives that needs to die. And if you do that, you'll live. There's the paradox, bottom of verse 13. Because, now here's an interesting phrase, "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Now, that adds a whole new conundrum in theology and that is this: that if you are fighting sin as a Christian, it is something you're not only obligated and required to do, but the obligation is so strong you could flip that on its head and look at it this way. If you're not fighting sin, you're not saved.

The element of fighting sin is not just an AA meeting here. This is where God really indwells your life and is working through you. And if you're led by the Spirit of God, you're sons of God, and people that are led by the Spirit of God are putting to death the misdeeds of the body because they're obligated to do so.

You're not on your own in this. As a matter of fact, if you want a cross-reference on this, jot down Philippians chapter two, verses 12 and 13. What a great set of verses; why don't we look at it? The conundrum of your fight with sin—and by that, I mean it's paradoxical. I'm calling you to fight sin. And some of you are going, "Okay, I should do that."

But here's the deal: if you're a Christian, as 1 John 3 puts it, your relationship with sin is already changed. You are fighting sin already—maybe not as well as you should—because God's seed abides in you. That's how 1 John 3 puts it. 1 John 2 puts it, if you say you're a follower of God but you're not walking as He walked, if you're not fighting the temptations in your life, then we got a real question about your Christianity. John calls you a liar.

Now, here's the conundrum, verse 12. He says, "Therefore, dear friends," Paul writes to the Philippians. Philippians 2:12. "As you've always obeyed"—and that doesn't mean they were perfect, but they were always working at it, they were always moving, they were following Christ, they were following the Shepherd.

"Not only in my presence when the preacher was pounding the pulpit and breathing down their neck, but now much more in my absence. I'm hearing good report. You guys are still following Christ." He says, "Continue to"—now underline this—"work out your salvation." Keep working at it. And do it with fear and trembling. So, get to work. Fight this sin. And what's the context? Look at verse number 12: obeying God. Fight, work to obey God. Do it.

Work it out, continue to work it out. You do have to work at it. But remember this: it is so required that it is guaranteed by the indwelling of God in your life. In other words, you're going to fight this battle. All I'm doing is giving you some tools to help you fight it.

Every real Christian—if you say this, "Well, I'll look at it, maybe I'll fight sin in my life," if you can even say that, you're probably not even a Christian. Christians from the inside out, which are real Christians, are people that have God living in them. And because God lives in you, He's already declared war on sin in your life. He's going to push you to do it.

Look at the next verse. "Work out your salvation, obey God, work to obey God. For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose." Translation: He's making you holy. He declared you holy at salvation; that's called justification. Now, He is working in you to make you more holy in your life.

That's what we're talking about for the next eight weeks. And to do that, what do we do? Declare war. But here's the deal: it's guaranteed. You're going to be declaring war. The question is how adept are we at it? How skilled are we at it? Because some people bear fruit some 30, and then other people bear fruit some 60, and then other people bear fruit some 100-fold. Here's the deal: it's rewarding to go after it. And it's also required.

I would say, listen, you have no option to be passive. It's a non-optional fight. So, we're all going to engage in it. I'm just telling you the harder we fight it, the more rewarding it is. But it is required. Please be encouraged by this, that it is rewarding, and please feel obligated by this, that it is required.

There's one more thing and we don't have time to unpack it, but at least jot it down. Letter C. In the 11th chapter of Hebrews, this great cloud of witnesses testify to something else. Not only that it is rewarding and that it is required, but they testify to the fact that it is right.

By that, I mean it's right in a kind of a supra-true way. It's above the circumstances of just, "Yeah, it's the right thing to do, therefore I gotta do it." I'm talking about it's right. It's right in the fabric of the cosmos. It's right in the most profound sense of all. Let me give you one example of this.

Jot down, if you would, Psalm 51. Psalm 51 and Psalm 32, those two Psalms reflect David's penitent heart. The superscript in Psalm 51 makes it very clear: this is after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and by proxy murdered Uriah, Bathsheba's husband.

That's some pretty serious sins, right? Committing adultery starts as some kind of—he didn't plan it, but he's gazing at this naked woman across the street, and then he's going to go pursue her, and then he's going to bring her into his bed, and then he's going to then impregnate her.

Now he's going to say, "I got a real problem on my hands, so hey, I got a captain out there who can get the guy killed." He does all he can to dig a deep, deep hole of sin. I'm thinking if you're Uriah's parents, if you're Bathsheba's sister, you're mad at David, are you not? You're saying, "You violated our family. You killed my son." If you're Uriah's brother, "You killed my brother. You're totally responsible for this."

Psalm 51, verse number four, David cries this out of the depths of his heart. He says, "Against You"—speaking to God now—"and You only have I sinned." Does that sound odd to you? If you're in Uriah's bowling team or something, I'm thinking, "No, you sinned against us. You hurt us. You sinned against Bathsheba. You sinned against your wife. You sinned against Uriah."

He says, "That's all true on this level. But when it comes to sin in its most profound theological sense, we have sinned against God Himself." Every sin you commit is violence against the character of God. It is not right on that philosophical, theological level.

Your sin, whether it's an outburst of anger, kicking the dog, screaming at your wife, lustful thought, compromise at work, telling a lie, whatever it is, it does violence against the character of an omnipotent, holy God who created the universe and sits, whether we believe it or not, at the center of all things. Out here somewhere in the cosmos, you as a person doing wrong does violence to all that is right.

In that sense, every sin we commit is an exclusive sin against the righteousness, holiness, and appropriateness of God. That is a big deal. So, not only is it rewarding and not only is it required, it's just right in the most profound sense.

I want to fight sin in my life because it's going to be worth it for me, and it's something I gotta do because I'm a Christian, and it's just profoundly the right thing to do. We should be serving God and doing righteous things and saying no to temptation because it's right in the most profound sense. My sin does violence to the character of God.

Dave Drury: So, having heard Mike Fabarez, what do you need to declare war on today? You're listening to Focal Point and a message titled "Spurred On by Godly Examples." You can revisit this lesson any time by going to focalpointradio.org or download the free Focal Point app, which lets you access all of Pastor Mike's Bible teaching resources wherever you go.

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Request your copy of *Sinners in the Hands of a Good God* by calling 888-320-5885 or donate online at focalpointradio.org. You can also mail your donation to us by writing to Focal Point, PO Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. I'm Dave Drury, and we'll see you back here tomorrow for the conclusion of "Spurred On by Godly Examples." That's Wednesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hey there, Pastor Mike here. We're almost out of time, but before we go, I wanted to personally invite you to contact us here. Let us know how we can be praying for you. Head on over to focalpointradio.org and click the contact page or send me a note on Facebook, facebook.com/pastormike, or x.com/pastormike. Can't wait to hear from you.

Guest (Male): Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.